Well-being is the state of mind of how an individual is feeling. It varies constantly; and thus short term fluctuations are ignored for the purposes of defining a universal measure to assess well-being.
Well-being and wellness encompass managing a disease and changing behaviors to reduce negative behaviors and increase positives. The current health and well-being care system fails to recognize that each patient is on a journey, with multiple challenges which make health and well-being harder to attain. To focus on paths to well-being, not just disease management, leads to better choices, and healthier outcomes.
Well-being is made up of domains: physical, social, mental, environmental and emotional. Each domain is made up of traits, which can be measured by a graded questionnaire. Better understanding of people's traits (which vary over time, and thus, the trait at any particular time are designated a “state”), habits, natural tendencies, and life challenges; and the motivators which help people correct for negative traits and overcome challenges, will aid them in achieving long term health and happiness.
As a general rule, the quantity of difference (or A) between any particular subject's state and the desired trait, is the primary motivator for that state or trait. For example, simply losing adipose tissue is generally the primary motivator for an obese subject, but other motivators which are related include: increased social interaction, better relationships, increased happiness, and others.
The well-being state and traits are personal, and differ across a population. The individual motivators which lead to improvements in the states and traits are similarly highly personal. These might include, for example: “I want to be a good role model for my children” or, “I want to be able to care for myself and not be dependent on other people.” The first step in finding a method to improve well-being requires finding the personalized states and traits, and the motivators to improve them, where needed.
Well-being state can be determined using a questionnaire approach, where domains and traits, and personalized motivators, are determined by responses to questions. Well-being state can be changed in a positive direction by motivators, and by personal motivators which focus on what motivates the particular individual. Al Deep Learning can be used to analyze traits and challenges across a broad population and determine when intervention in the form of messaging motivators is needed, and can be used to aid in selection of the motivator messages. An interactive system which provides tailored motivational messages for users, is clearly desirable.